Tonga

We had booked this week with Quest Tours Australia, the package included bed and breakfast accommodation, flights and 5 days in a boat looking for whale swims. The fist leg was to leave Sydney and fly to Nadi International airport in Fiji, where we had to stay the night in a hotel near the airport as there were no direct flights to Vava'u and our connecting flight was the following morning. We flew on to Tonga the following morning to Vava'u Airstrip and transferred to our accommodation at Neiafu, which we were pleasantly surprised about. The Puataukanave International Hotel was located right against Port Refuge and Koko Bay, a stunning natural harbour full of sailing boats. All rooms were spacious and had a balcony overlooking the sea.

The following morning we met Gabby our tour guide at breakfast and then headed out to meet the whale boat. The whale boat, The Ashlee G was skippered and owned by a really friendly and knowledgable man, Andrew Jones he also  had a lovely co pilot Paki Tangimana. After going through the safety rules and the Tongan rules on diving with the humpbacks we were off to find whales. Tonga is a great destination for humpbacks as they make an annual migration from their feeding grounds in Antartica to The calm walk waters of Tonga to mate, give birth and nurse their young and it wasn't long before we had our first encounter.

There are strict rules in place in Tonga when interacting with humpbacks and these are strictly enforced. Each boat has a maximum of 7 hours out at sea, there can be no more than 4 people in the water plus their guide, the boat can drop you no closer than 10m (although you are allowed to drift closer), each group is only allowed 20 minutes in the water, you cannot come between mother and calf and there is no touching the whales. After a few attempts at getting near  a  whale, as they often just swim away, we had our first opportunity in the water with a large female that seemed happy to have us around if only at a distance. this was our only encounter underwater for the day, we did snorkel into some caves on the way back to the jetty, giving an unusual experience as the entrance was underwater.

The next few days were a repeat of the first, we saw whales every day on the surface and had some kind of encounter under water too, however a couple of the days were quite poor with limited encounters, but one was exceptional giving us several really close encounters with up to three whales at a time. The following photos are a mix of those days to give you a flavour of the experience, which is hard to describe, but fabulous. Imagine looking into the eye of a 35 ton creature!

In the evenings we ate at local restaurants that were quite reasonably priced, and following the whale swims we had a couple of days spare which we used to explore the local area. Hiring a car was pointless as Vava'u is so small and there is no where to drive to. We walked to The Mount Talau National Park, located about a mile and a half from the hotel. Mount Talaui is a flat-topped mountain that rises 430ft behind Port Refuge. From the top you get a great view of the bay and Neiafu. We also walked to over to Veimumuni Cave which is a small cave with a freshwater pool about two miles from the hotel. A short walkway leads down to a viewing platform of the coast, as well as the cave’s entrance where you find a freshwater pool. According to legend, the cave was the bathing place of the maiden goddess, Vei.

In the evenings we also had time to explore the town and the local markets to buy a few souvenirs. On the Sunday we attended church, we went to St. Joseph’s Cathedral right behind our hotel in Neiafu, this was something were were told we should experience and we were glad we did as the singing by the Tongan local congregation was extraordinary, if you watch the video link at the bottom of the page the soundtrack is my recording of their singing. There was also quite an unusual bar floating in the bay "The Hideaway", where you had to swim out to have a beer, you could also shout and wave and the owner would come over and pick you up from the shore in a small boat.

Our final day Quest Tours took us out for an afternoon to 'Ene'io Beach, this is a private beach on the East of the island about eight miles out of Neiafu. We were treated to a Tongan banquet and then spent a few hours snorkelling or just chilling on the beach. It was a nice way to end our time in Tonga. The following morning we flew back to Fiji, but not before several arguments with the airport staff as they did not have enough room on the Aeroplane for all the passenger baggage, we were luck ours made the flight, lots of other passengers flew without their baggage! 

We put together a video of our whale swims, "The humpback whales of Vava'u" which were at times almost unbelievable. The soundtrack is the voices of the St Joseph's Cathedral Sunday congregation. Click on the photo to follow the YouTube link